In contrast to what is being written on the major internet newspapers, the latest beta build 10C535 of Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.2 does indeed still not support Intel Atom CPUs anymore.
Stellarola investigated into this issue some of his spare time to find out why different sources tell different things. And the reason is simple: if you run an early built 10.6.2 with an old kernel from july then 10.6.2 will indeed work, but the latest stock kernel in 10.6.2 build 10C535 as of now is not going to allow Atom CPUs to run.
According to Stellarola even in the 10.6.2. build 10C540 the Atom support is not gonna come back.
According to Mac4Ever (french) the Snow Leopard 10A432 version seems to be the Gold Master (GM) release, meaning this is the final release-to-manufactoring (RTM) version. Although latest rumors (german Golem.de) say Snow Leo might be released in late August, newest information tell release is in September.
According to the german Heise.de and Golem.de Microsoft will make Windows 7 RC 1 on May 5, 2009 available for download. A beta version of the Windows 7 to Windows XP compatibility feature called XPM (we reported) will be available on April 30, 2009.
XPM is in fact a complete Virtual Machine of Windows XP using a special version of Microsoft’s Virtual PC, thus making Windows 7 about 100% compatible to Windows XP.
We’ve been informed that a jailbreak for iPhone OS 3 beta is on doubtful trade for about 10$ (and on doubtful websites full of ads). We strongly recommend
to wait with updating to 3.0 until the iPhone Dev Team has released a working solution, that also helps people maintaining the unlock possibility for the iPhone 3G (means to not update the baseband!) and
to not use jailbreaks for 3.0. As there are no technical information available, how it works and thus what might be screwed up by applying it.
Be patient.
Update April 2, 2009: Now the iPhone Dev Team also comments on those non Dev Team jailbreaks. Obviously some people use a self modified version of QuickPwn. The iPhone Dev Team will of course give no support to people using modified QuickPwn versions.The Dev Team explicitly warns from updating to a iPhone OS beta version floating on peer2peer networks and from applying non Dev Team jailbreaks to it.The problem is the iPhone OS 3.0 is beta and thus contains lots of bugs. That is why Apple releases these betas in such a short period.
iPhone 3G users will also lose the possibility to unlock, since baseband 02.30 cannot be unlocked at this moment. Yellowsn0w is compatible to baseband 02.28 only. Last but not least: all iPhone OS 3 betas will cease to work at a certain point of time.
Since yesterday Apple seeds a beta build 10A314 of the forthcoming Snow Leopard. Developers report Apple recommends them to test 64-bit kernel extensions (Kexts) to speed up transition from 32-bit to 64-bit.
It does not seem that this build contains the rumored new User Interface (UI) called “marble” , that AppleInsider.com has reported a couple of days ago.
[Update] Sept 26th, 2008: Added the SRWare Iron browser under Downloads
The Next Browser War
The next Browser War has begun yesterday night, when Google released their new view on the Web. A new Browser called “Chrome“. Chrome is the most powerful weapon, when it comes to the question: how to connect services locally stored on your PC with services available on the net.
Microsoft – the market leader in the field of operating systems – cannot be amused about that. Chrome has the potential to make a large amount of local stored services (like Office solutions) dispensable, means: what will we need Windows for?
The Thing with the Privacy
But it is that simple only from the view of the economists. Highlighting the potentials is their sphere of action. With a sociological view people will ask, why they should give eben more private data in the hands of Google. Google’s only ambition is making money through advertisements, thus giving away for free all the services people will need in order to provide the users with customer specific advertisements.
Even now Google has already collected more private data than Microsoft ever had the possibility to. And every Chrome installation got a unique serial number integrated. That serial will be used for tracking and aggregation of customer behaviour data. We will see how people will agree with Google’s strategy.
The Future
What likely is: the end of Mozilla could be coming silently. In the past Mozilla actually was bankrolled by Google: 85% of their revenue comes from Google (read here and here). Although Google and Mozilla prolonged their sponsoring contracts until 2011, there is basically no need for Google to sponsor Mozilla anymore, when supplying an own browser like Chrome.
Google’s battle against Microsoft has reached a new level of escalation. We’re quite certain to see Microsoft’s answer very soon.
VMWare has released VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta for MacOS X. Fusion will integrate McAfee Antivirus solution with an upgrade and update plan for 12 months. Moreover Fusion 2.0 will be available as a free update for Fusion 1.0 customers.
Further features:
Application sharing: link filetypes from MacOS X to run a specific Windows program (on your guest) and vice versa, link filetypes within your virtual machine to run a specific MacOS program (on your host)
McAfee VirusScan Plus Subscription for 12 months
Language Support: Exptended Spanish and Italian Language support
Folder Mirroring: Link your documents, pictures etc. folders from within your Windows VM to your host’s documents, pictures folder.
Automattic Snapshots for further protection against viruses
Keyboard and Mouse shortcut mapping: link special Windows commands like “insert” “print screen” to unused F-Keys like “F13″, F14” and so on
Improved DirectX integration thru hardware accelerated 3D graphics: even running 720p or 1080p videos smoother
Downloading the beta version as demo requires registration on VMWare site (go here). A free beta serial key is provided aswell.
